Dr M says: It’s that time of year again! Last year’s University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity students (class of 2016 pictured above) are just about finishing their dissertations and we are already wishing them well as they get ready to move on to botanical pastures new, while the class of 2017 are soon to be on their way to Reading for a new exciting
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Perish the thought that Dr M would ever talk rubbish, but recently a survey in the Dagenham area lead to this close encounter of a post-industrial kind, replete with the results of endless fly-tipping, accompanied by a diversity of ruderal plants which you commonly find colonising such places, as well as one or two less common! Below, Dr M shares images of twenty of the
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Dr M says: Botany is everywhere, yes even at Travelodge! Dr M had the pleasure of staying at a Travelodge near Crewe recently. Nice comfy bed and a pleasant view across a meandering stream to a fragment of wet woodland with Salix fragilis (Crack-willow). But be warned: the view will be quite different once summer approaches, but more of that later! Dr M had
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Dr M is proud and delighted to present this latest in this series by botanist and country diarist Phil Gates who Dr M “met” (the two have never actually met!) on Twitter. This virtual meeting goes to show just how significant the internet has become as a virtual meeting place, a discussion forum and a vector for sharing and spreading the botanical word! And beautiful
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Dr M is delighted to introduce this botanical selfie from Jan Wim Jongepier, a Dutchman who has made his home in the little town of Veseli in south Moravia in the Czech Republic near to the border with Slovakia.
What’s the botanical buzz of 2015? Well, Dr M is taking eXtreme botany and #iamabotanist to the Annual Conference of the Association of Science Education (ASE) at University of Reading 7-10 January 2015.
Dr M is delighted to congratulate John Warren on his very recent promotion to a Chair in Botany at Aberystwyth University and to welcome him back here to present this guest blog on 21st century botany, it’s not all long beards, khaki shorts and Cyclanthaceous pith helmets…
Dr M’s first lesson with MSc Plant Diversity students and MSc SISS included a tour round the woodland known as the Wilderness on the University of Reading award-winning green campus.
Dr M will be meeting his new University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity and MSc Species Identification and Survey Skills (SISS) students for his first big teach-in on Thursday.
Dr M is stuck in a train somewhere near Slough as he heads to the second meeting of the UK Plant Science Federation working group on training and skills to save UK botany from oblivion! Important work this and fortunately he is not alone, the working group has no fewer than sixteen keen and able people botanically beavering away on the issues and outcomes.
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